Well, we are waaaay too early to talk much about Book II as we are continuing to promote Book I and monitor sales, but I wanted to let everyone know what has been decided upon so that speculation does not drive everyone to the point of insanity! The following is pretty much set in stone as far as what to expect for the next game game...

- Book II is going to use a modified version of the Book I engine running at 1024x768. We are using 80% new tiles, so you are not going to get a visual re-hash of Book I.

- Based on the poll results, we are going to stay solo (no party) for Book II. Don't worry, all you party people- we've got other things in the works.

- You will be able to select male or female. We are working with the storyline now to see the best way to add additional races other than human. If we decide not to add racial selection do to storyline limitations, we will further tweak the Origin attribute to supplement the variety of your male/female Human character.

- It is going to be a "Basilisk Games" type of game. What does that mean? We are staying old-school. Book II is going to be even more stat-heavy than the first game. Although there have been a lot of awesome suggestions given to us and we will implement many of them, when it's all finished we still need to be able to say that Book II is an "old-school RPG". We are not going to change our design philosophy or style; there are too many game companies who have tried to give everything to everyone and they destroyed their game(s) in the process. We would rather keep 95% of you happy than try to satisfy the 5% who claim Book I sucks do to some design choice we made.

That's it for now. As with Book I, we won't reveal much about the game's storyline until it is released. The release date is "when it's done", which means sometime between next week and two years from now. However, I personally don't think Book II's development will take as long as Book I, due to the fact that many of the assets we have now we had to buy/make during Book I's development.

I think the stated considerations are fantastic. To be honest there is little I didn't like about the game, while I initially leaned for a party I've come to enjoy the lone gunman plowing through adversity to save the day. The listed tweeks and an enjoyable story should be all you'll really need to do. I'd say the game is at least moderately successful (I expect this success to grow post christmas) and don't stray too far from what we enjoy about this game. I wish you a Happy Holiday, and the best of luck with the future endeavors of the company.

Sweet. Well, you have my $$! (p.s. you need more icons)

sounds good. I love the game, and hope you always know my suggestions are just that, only suggestions. When can we pre-order/buy it?

I would blindly subscribe to your next 3 or so games.
I think its good that you want to keep the spirit of *your* vision of eschalon.

Good, good. I was worried when you thought about totally rehashing the engine, etc, and then I would be waiting for another 3-4 years for Book 2. Roll on Book 2.

So good. very glad that you guys arn't going to try to "modernize" the next iteration. The old school look and feel is exactly why I love this game. bring on more!

Still a shame about the party though for me. oh well. though you say because of the polls? *cough* 46 to 44 *cough*

It's all good news to me. I'm liking BW's way of staying open and providing essential updates to fans periodically. It's also great in the sense that BW and his team treat fan feedback seriously. Staying true to the "Basilisk Games" type of game means that book 2 will be just as good or even better than book 1. Eschalon's style is unique and fans out there hope to see this present in the rest of the series.

This is great news, I guess this means that we are going to get a book II!

Im doing my happy dance now.

Would that be a merc system like DiabloII or a pet like NetHack? I could live with those options...

Oh well I guess I'll wait until official news comes out. Hope sales are doing well for Book1!

I am really looking forward to the "other" project that is party based that Thomas described..

Im wondering if that one will be the first person game like the Might and Magic and Eye of the Beholder series, I love those too. If so, I really hope its kept as a "2D" game, Im not a fan of 3D.

Yep, 2D is a must for me too.

I'm curious as to why you insist on a 2-D environment. Would you really be unhappy with a 3-D world presented with a Wizardry-type interface, i.e. you can look (and move) up and down as well as NESW, or is it something else associated with 3-D that you dislike?

really, when ultima underworld was out, I found it to be a great game and such, but now I'm sick of 3D games, they are everywhere. Some can be interesting, but what I enjoy in Eschalon is the pixel art graphics, the playability and the linux support.

Because its generally pretty hard to make a good looking 3D game, where it seems to be easier (esp. for a single person company) to use 2D-Tiles presented in a 3D-manner.

When i take your example of Wizardry, i like Wiz 6/7 more than the eighth part, graphic-wise.